Racing Kicks Off

Enoshima Olympic Week

2004 Olympic Weekin Enoshima, Japan started yesterday with two races for the 470 fleet. Fresh from the Athens Olympic Games, Seki and Todoroki, surprise Bronze medallists in the men's fleet, are now back on the water in Enoshima.

They were in fact, too quick for the first race and were scored OCS, and had to round the end to re-start. However, they were calm and concentrated to come back to fifth by the finish. Seki said, "We knew that we were over the line, so when I saw the X flag up, we immediately returned to the committee boat to round. Unfortunately, we started in the middle of the line, so it took us long time to round the committee boat, and re-start. Then, we saw the X flag was dropped. It was only us. Never mind. We managed to finish fifth, which is very much nicer than OCS." They were probably like this in Athens - no panic at all.

Matsunaga and Yanagawa had a good day with two 1sts, and stands 1st overall. Seki and Todoroki had 5th and 2nd today to be 4th overall. 25 boats are taking part in the 470 class. There is only one female pair, but many mixed crew teams.

It was only 470s today, but OP, FJ, Mistral, Laser, Laser Radial, and some other national classes will start tomorrow, and altogether, 11 classes will race until Monday, September 20. In the Mistral class, 7 Chinese sailors are taking part.